Outlander Season 1, Episode 5: Top 5 thoughts during the rewatch of Rent

4. Why do I like these characters?

This is one of those episodes where I dislike a lot of the characters. Up to this point, I’ve loved Jamie’s honor and enjoyed seeing the multiple faces of Dougal MacKenzie. Later on, I know I’ll like the characters again. Yet, in this episode, I can’t stand a lot of them.

I’ll start with Angus, as he’s the easiest one. Because he did wrong, he starts to blame Claire for wandering off and the men losing her. She could have been part way to Craig na Dun by this point, but she’d stayed within the camp and found the women to chat to. Claire did nothing wrong, but because Angus had failed at his one task, he was angry with her. I hate people like that in real life, so I hate characters like that!

Dougal, I get, is suspicious of Claire, but he often gets suspicious for the slightest of reasons. Either don’t trust her or do. Make up your damn mind!

Okay, so Dougal is actually the least problematic in the whole episode. I get his side of the story, but it doesn’t mean I like him.

Jamie is the one that I really come to dislike in the episode and that surprises me. He doesn’t listen to Claire at all. All we really see is the men of the time. When Jamie shoots her down when she says “where I come from…” it’s just a Highlander speaking.

However, we know Jamie to be honorable and kind. This isn’t a kind Jamie moment at all. He just expects her to accept the Highland way of doing things (and unknowingly the 18th century way of doing things) but it’s not like she can turn her emotions on and off. Considering the view of emotional women of the time, he should have expected that.

But that’s my rant over! I just wondered at certain points in this episode why I even liked any of the characters.